A Story About Bookstores
by Maggot Magnet
Summary: After accidentally allowing Scout to accompany him to the bookstore, Engineer is forced to cope with the annoying bastard for a day.
1. A Chapter About Inviting Scout

This is going to be a story about emotion.

This is going to be a story about misery, sorrow, and the loss of will to live.

This is going to be a story about misunderstandings and quarrels and flitbags and faggots.

But, more importantly, this is going to be a story about bookstores.

So I hope you like it.

* * *

It was a wonderful battle-less morning, and the afternoon sunlight seeped through the windows like warm Jarate on a crisp new suit.

It was a wonderful opportunity to get out of the base and cease the ceasefire day, and some members of the team decided to do just that.

Medic jammed his feet into his rubber boots with a goosebumping whine-squeak. "Engineah, ya got za keys?" he called across the room.

"Yup." His glove jangled the keychain to accompany his word.

Spy was having quite the hassle adjusting his tie, but he still managed to ask an important question. "Pardon, but we _are_ riding zhe laborer's vehicle, correct?"

Engineer smiled with a friendly "Sure, why not?"

"If yer fixin' to, then ya best fill 'er up at the servo," muttered Sniper, who was lounging on the sofa half-asleep with his hat drooping over his eyes. He sniffed and shrugged his shoulders slightly. "Don't take my word for it, but Oi fairly think we're almost at the E on truckie's."

"Hm." Engineer nodded. "How much a tank?"

"Almost 40 now. Tell me if it rose, will you?"

"Sure will."

"Ey-hey-_heeeeeeey!_" Enter the Scout. He walked through the doorway at precisely the wrong moment. With a squint, he then detected a familiar hurried 'we're-finally-getting-away-from-Scout' atmosphere floating around the summer air.

Of course, that atmosphere wasn't the least bit acceptable to frail-personalitied inferiority-complexed Scout.

"Woah, woah, woah, woah, WOAH! _Wait_ a second 'ere! Where da hell ya all goin' witout ME, _huh?_"

"Za _bookstore,_" replied a smirking Medic who was sure the two words would immediately cause Scout to scream and hide.

Spy chuckled as he finally fixed the tie around his neck. "Our apologizes." He tucked its silky end into his vest. "It's not exactly your sort of entertainment."

But Scout did not scream and hide.

"I wanna go!" declared Scout.

Engineer sighed. "Oh boy..."

"Nein. Yah not going vizh us." Medic frowned. "All you ah going to do is run up and down za bookstore aisles like a drunken leprechaun, and _ve_ ah going to get kicked out for _your_ behavior. Yah not going." He flicked a red rubber glove at him like he would to a misbehaving Archimedes. "Schnell. Shoo, shoo."

Scout secretly melted inside. That exact portion of 'we're-finally-getting-away-from-Scout' dialogue brought him back to the good old days, when he was seven and all of his brothers were going out to drink some booze together. He went on his knees and he pleaded and he bribed and he rolled on the floor and he did everything he could possibly do to make them take him, but his brothers laughed at him and slammed the front door in his puppy-dog pout. As soon as they rattled out of the driveway in their rickety red Ford and their madras shirts, Scout had thrown the largest temper tantrum _ever._ The neighbors had all called the police. His Ma literally had to shove a sock in his mouth to make him stop.

Scout exploded. "I AM FUCKIN' _GOIN'_ WIT YOU GUYS, OR _ELSE!_"

That approach didn't work on everyone. Sniper, who was grumpy from his loud nap-interruption, rolled his eyes beneath his sinking hat and grumbled, "Cool it, sister. They made the plans, not you."

Words of philosophy from the wonderful wisdom of Scout; when words don't work, volume does.

Hence the following.

"I_ AAAAAM_ GOONNNAAA GOOOO WIT YOU_ GUUUUUUYYYYYSSSSS!_" screamed Scout for the mere reason that he could. "_AAAAAAAA-AAAAAAA-AAAAAAAA-AAAAAAAA-AAAAAAAAH!_"

There was no Ma to shove a sock in his mouth_ this_ time.

"Jesus al_might_y!" interjected Engineer as he threw both hands to his aching eardrums. It was human instinct that compelled him to become so complacent; "Ya can go with us, al_right?_ Don't_ scream_ like that."

Once the instincts were reacted-to and the words were said, nothing be taken back.

Everyone rolled their eyes and groaned in unison; "ENGINEEE_EEEER!_"

He realized what he'd done. "Oh...crap. Sorry, fellas."

Scout clapped. "YAY! I'M GOIN' TO DA BOOKSTORE WIT MY BEST BUDDIES!"

"We are most certainly_ not_ your 'best buddies'," corrected Spy with a grimace of disgust.

"Hey, uh, yeah y'are, ya fuckin' faggot," replied Scout absently. He turned back to the whole group. "Anyway, where we all goin'? Oh yeah, never mind, the bookstore. Does da bookstore have cool books and all? And comics about Flash? I like that guy. He's pretty keen."

Sniper felt extremely grateful that he hadn't been one of the unfortunate bookworms. "Heh heh. Good luck, mates."

"Da hell ya mean, 'good luck'?" huffed Scout. He crossed his arms. "What da hell's _dat_ mean, huh, Mister Pissy-Prissy-Pants? Ya sayin' dat I'm, like, what...gonna, like, murder 'em on da way dere or somethin'?"

Murder was too soft a word.

Forfeit o'clock. "Vell...zat's it," announced Medic, strutting to the kitchen for some comfort food. "I am not going. Take care."

Spy smiled and surrendered along behind Medic. "Oo, what zhe coincidence! Neizher am _I!_"

Engineer's goggles grew wide. He raised a finger and limply pointed to himself while whining like a sickly stray dog; "But...but that means..."

It was too late for second thoughts. Spy and Medic had already gone through the archway and began chatting lightheartedly about Engineer and how much of an instinctive idiot he is and how unlucky he'll be.

There's really no compassion on this team, is there?

Sniper shook his head with a smile. "Poor, sweet truckie."

Only sarcastic compassion.

Scout clapped again. "YAY! I'M GOIN' TO DA BOOKSTORE WIT ONLY ENGINNY AND ME AN' THAT'S ALL."

"FELLERS! MEDIC! SPY!" cried Engineer like a young boy on a dentist's chair. "SAVE ME!"

He began to take off towards the kitchen as well, but Scout somehow had found time to latch onto the back of Engineer's overalls to keep him running in place.

"C'mon, let's go a'ready! I can't wait to see all da goddamn books and all and maybe the Flash comics but I'm not sure if dey got them. Hell, if dey did den I'm pretty sure I got all a' dem 'cause, like, I'm a big fan. I hope they have some more baseball bios, though, 'cause Ma forgot to buy me one dis year. I gotta remind her to next time I go home to Boston for a vay-cay. My mom is pretty mad at me now, though. She says I ruin her life and e'ryone's life. I forgive her for it 'cause she's my Ma, y'know? But still. I don't ruin lives, in my opininum." Scout's eyes fixated on the ceiling and he seemed lost in thought. I wonder if, just perhaps, I am implying anything.

Sniper used the time to snuggle into a comfortable nap-position on the sofa. "Hey, Engineer. Be a buddyroo and lock the door on yer way out, will you?" His smile made his words even more gloating. "'Preciate it."

Scout snapped back to reality. "Man, sorry for sorta dyin' on ya guys for a minute. Anyway, let's get dis party started!" His head swerved to Engineer with a goofy grin on his face. "We goin' or what? 'Cause I really got no patients for you, y'know."

Sniper took notice of Engineer's sick face and just laughed.

Engineer actually did look ready to hurl, and one wouldn't blame Sniper for laughing. Except the victim. "Damnit, Sniper, you asshole."

And before anyone knew it, Scout had already dragged Engineer out the door by his overall strap and the adventures began.


	2. A Chapter About Bus Stops

As soon as they made their way to the bases' parking lot, there appeared to be a little misunderstanding.

It involved Scout, Engineer, and transportation.

The Engineer part; Engineer didn't have the trust to allow Scout to enter his truck, so it was increasingly awkward when Scout zipped to the passenger door.

The other Engineer part; Engineer also didn't have the heart to tell him he'd already decided he'd rather ride the bus than be crammed in a car with that Bostonian jumping bean.

The Scout part; there's not much to say about Scout contributing to this problem other than the fact that he existed.

"So? Da hell ya waitin' for, Smissmas?" called Scout from afar as he stood beside the red truck. He kicked the front wheel as foreshadowing of disasters ahead. "Unlock da door, or else I'll take my big fat goddamn silvah bat and Imma bash all dat glass on da window in, and all dat goddamn glass will go on da goddamn car seat so dat da next person to plunk their fat ass on it like a bastard is gon' have glass shards up in on their tooshie and all, so dey're gonna have ta go to Medic and Medic's gonna have to take a pair a' tweezers and pull 'em all out _one_ by fuckin' _one_ - and it's gonna hurt like a basta'd, be_lieve_ me."

Scout got angrier by the word.

"And it wasn't even their fuckin' fault! It's just as unfair as if, like, dey're running to see if da intel is okay and den their fat fuckin' teammate runs in like a bastard and glass goes fuckin' EV-'RY-WHERE!" He winced. "Den later dat day, dat person sits down in a goddamn chair all normal - 'cause y'know, it's a chair and all - but then..." Scout leaped at least three feet into the air in demonstration. "..._YEOWCH!_ It's fuckin' GLASS! _GLASS_ ON HIS _ASS!_ I don't even_ CARE_ if it rhymes! I DON'T EVEN _CARE!_ IT'S _TER_RIBLE! IT'S_ TER_RIBLE AND IT AIN'T FAIR AT FUCKIN' _ALL!_ SO DON'T MAKE ME KICK YOUR FUCKIN' WINDOW IN AND _DRIVE_ DA FUCKIN' _CAR_ ALREADY!"

By the time he finished talking, Engineer was already beside him and he'd already gathered the courage to quietly object; "We're takin' the bus, Scout."

Scout squinted at him. "What? Why? Ya got a_ prob_lem?"

The assertiveness training class he took last May finally paid off. "Ah'd rather take the bus," he repeated, a very assertive pout forming on his lips.

Both their heights made it easy for Scout to loom over him like a ten-foot ghost. "HOW COME? I NEVER EVEN _WENT_ IN YER TRUCK!"

And praise the lord for that.

Either Engineer struggled to find the right words, the right words struggled to find Engineer, or Scout was just an idiot. "Uh, well, because...because Ah'd...take the bus. For me. Okay?"

Scout shrugged indifferently. "Okay."

That was easy. Engineer sighed in relief.

Scout shrugged differently. "Wait, question."

Oh no.

Engineer half-nodded. "Ah'm listenin'."

"Do ya know all the stops and MBTA stuff and all dat crazy transportation shit no one knows about?" Scout thought for a moment. "I mean...I mean, y'are a genius, so you should know it wit'out even tryin'. 'Cause maybe it's all schematic or mathematics or somethin'. Right?"

"Ah guess we can ask someone if anythin'," replied Engineer. He started up the sidewalk alongside the dirt road that stemmed from the parking lot. "C'mon, let's go. Ah reckon the bus stop's 'round here somewhere."

He reckoned wrong.

* * *

20 minutes of walking is either indifference or hell.

For Scout, it was a walk in the park. Literally. He could have walked for another 7 hours. Actually, on the first day of second grade, his mom had trusted him in walking to Michael J. Perkins Elementary. Too bad she hadn't realized he was never actually going to reach the school. He walked in a pointless circle until school was over seven hours later, and his mom had to search around the entire neighborhood in her car until she found him a block away from their house. He was grounded for two months and rode the school bus the next day. Scout never walked to school again.

However, for Engineer, it was a walk through utter pain and torture and sweaty armpits. All through his life – and, more importantly, his less social years – he always told himself that smarts outweighed sport-ability. And by 'sports' we mean walking half a mile. I'll choose not to mention the stains he'd gained in the armpit of his bright red uniform to spare your imagination, and for some odd reason Scout's nose failed to detect the dense smell of warm Texan sweat seeping through the air. The sun was beating down on Engineer's shoulders, and the heat was already making him swoon.

Engineer swore he saw a huge lake in the far distance of the highway sidewalk, but then found out that he'd just gotten sweat on his goggles. That or he was already suffering with the Fata Morgana effect. The second one was far more likely.

"Are we...we almost there?" he huffed.

"Is dat da bus stop?" Scout asked. He squinted, and then assured himself, "Yeah. I think that's the bus stop."

But all things needed a pint of doubt from Scout.

"Well, don't even take my word fer it. 'Cause, like, it might be da bus stop. Da key word is might, 'cause I'm not sure. It might just be a mirage and all, like in dose creepy movies about da dudes walkin' a thousand million years 'cross one a' dose super-huge goddamn deserts in da middle a' nowhere, y'know? I forgot what dat movie's called. Dat shit was on TV once, and I watched it with Medic, I think. It was real dumb. The dude fell in a dead heap like a bastard and it was all gross and stupid - blood was all on the sand, y'know, but it looked real fake 'cause blood don't even come in dat bright red color - and there was a crapload a' credits with dumb old music and all that I heard like ten thousand million decades and eras and mil'niums ago in my Ma's old car dat was blue and had three scratches on it on purpose. My brudda did it 'cause it was our gang sign. Anyhow, Medic cried at da end a' dat desert movie. _Wow,_ is he a _pussy!_ I _swear._ He's such a pussy dat he even meows like a cat! Haw haw, get it? Man, ain't it weird how pussies are like cats and all, but cocks are like roosters? I dunno. I mean, cats and roosters don't even have to do wit each other at all, y'know? Wait, but, like, da movie thingy. Do you remember what it's called? I don't. But yer the genius here, right?" Scout slugged the genius in the shoulder. "What's it called, _genius?_"

Engineer sighed.

Scout looked over at him and snorted angrily. "For Chris_sake._ Stop doin' dat. Sighin' is my bet peeve."

"...s-sorry," heaved Engineer, choosing not to correct Scout for the sake of his lungs. "Ah...Ah'm just...really tired. All this walkin'."

"What _about_ it?" prompted Scout.

"All this walkin'." He paused to let out a breath. "Makin' me tired."

Scout shrugged. "Not me."

Engineer rolled his eyes beneath his goggles. "Whoopee. Good fer you."

He smiled sincerely. "Thanks, 'ginny."

Before they knew it, shade enveloped them and they recognized the familiar scent of metal and warm plastic bench-seats. They looked around and realized they'd reached their destination.

The last time Engineer had seen this bus stop was when he'd first signed up for RED, and it literally looked no different; a tiny little structure with graffiti and grease and cracks on its walls, color scheme clearly supposed to be green but years-after-years of New Mexico heat eroding the bright saturation into dull gray. The story of miserable bus stops everywhere.

"Hey! Dis is it!" announced Scout as he hurriedly stole one-third of the sitting room on the bench. "Toldja! _Told_ja dis was da bus stop!"

"Phew!" Engineer plunked down beside him and caught his breath. "Gosh, _finally._"

Scout froze with ridiculously large eyes and jaw dropping down to his collarbone.

His expression was met with a little swivel of Engineer's head and the appropriate shocked remark; "_Holy_ - what's with the face? Almost scared the _soul_ outta me. _God._ Y'okay, kiddo?"

Scout darted his head about the empty bus stop, and then hissed, "Da hell are you doing?"

"Me?" Engineer looked down at himself and saw nothing out of the ordinary. He looked back up to Scout. "Sittin' on a bench. What's wrong?"

Scout leaped up like a horny frog and regained posture at least four feet away. "YOU? SITTIN' ON DA SAME BENCH WIT ME?" His eyes grew serious. "WHAT ARE YA?" His pelvis teetered forward with a grin and he guffawed loudly, "_FLITTY?_"

That word was completely uncalled for.

"...flitty?" Engineer echoed absently, never having heard that terminology before.

The grin didn't vanish as he kept gushing anti-homo slurs. "WHAT ARE YA? A FAGGOT? ARE YA A FAGGOT? IS DAT IT? _GAYWAD!_"

Confusion radiated from Engineer's pout. "Sitting on a bench with my teammate is.._.flitty?_"

Scout paused to consider. "Uh..._YEAH!_"

"But," started Engineer. "But our team eats dinner every single day and we all sit at the same table. That ain't flitty. Is it?"

"No," countered Scout one-wordedly.

Engineer smirked. "And you and Pyro sit together on yer bed when ya play Parcheesi all night, right? That ain't flitty to ya none?"

"_NO!_" countered Scout one-wordedly and in a loud manner.

The lack of complete sentence made Engineer's brows curl into a confused grimace. "Well, why the hell not?"

Scout paused to think.

He smiled. "Shut up, smarty."

The conversation basically reached a dead end.

"Well," sighed Engineer.

The end was very, very dead.

And then it came back to life because a familiar roar of an engine rumbled their way.

Engineer grinned. "Hey! The bus is here!"

Just in time. At least being in the bus would allow him to socialize with a different assortment of insults.

Engineer waved at the bus driver with a friendly smile on his face.

They seriously should have taken the truck.


	3. A Chapter About Buses

As soon as the two mercenaries entered the bus, they immediately regretted it.

Engineer, who is so fond of predicting outcomes and creating formulas, should have predicted an outcome or created a formula when he noticed a little inscription on top of the bus that read 'Albuquerque'. He also should have constructed a little diagram of their stupidity to wait for the bus about three seconds before rush hour.

And Scout should have just been quiet.

* * *

Everyone is always hurrying someplace in big cities simply because everyone else is hurrying someplace. In general, Albuquerque was an ant swarm, like if you were to wind up a toy until it goes click-click-click and only then let go. The transportation offered was undoubtedly no different.

In fact, the bus was so crammed that as soon as Engineer and Scout heard the door whoosh open with a squeaky groan, a hoard of people poured out the only open entrance and nearly trampled over the two as if it were a bus-based mosh pit.

Of course, Engineer wondered for a split second why there were so many people claiming their stop was on a highway smack in the middle of nowhere. He then remembered that, sadly enough, they'd been walking up a lonely road beside the Turnpike, which seriously wasn't a great road to fetch a bus. He gulped, realizing that anyone with claustrophobia was due to spontaneously combust in that tiny bus. Of course, Engineer and Scout didn't have claustrophobia, but they might perhaps -

"You two comin' in er_ not?_ Yer holdin' us up."

Scout and Engineer's heads swung towards the growl. A hairy bearded redhead sat in the driver's seat, clenching the wheel as if it were about to fall off. His eyes were so squinted under his hat that they hardly appeared there. The snake tattoos swirling down his arms made Engineer feel the hairs on his back stand up, and for a second there he literally considered turning around and running right back to the base.

Scout puffed his chest out very manly-like to hide his nervous nerves. "Ya got a pr'_Ob_lem, bozo?"

His voice had cracked.

Scout melted in shame deep inside.

"Yer my problem, squeaky." He looked back at his disgruntled passengers. "Listen," grumbled the bus driver in sarcasm as he angrily locked eyes with Engineer. "I ain't got all day, so hurry up."

Engineer discreetly tapped on the back of Scout's elbow as a secret emergency signal.

Scout turned. "Why did ya even tap on my elbow all secretly-like?"

"Ah don't _wannaaa-aaa_ go in this_ buu-uuus,_" whispered Engineer in a nervous song.

Scout grinned. "I don't wanna go in your mom. _Psyche!_ I a'ready did. _Haw!_"

The bus driver raised his voice. "The _hell_ is the _hold-up?_ We got people gonna be late ta work here 'cause a' you!"

Engineer scampered up the stairs with a squeaky "Sorry!"

Scout tagged along behind him, for he had no other option.

The door shut. As soon as it did, they were less than a foot away from the bus driver and his little can with the words 'Bus Faire' written in scribbly black ink.

With a disgruntled grunt like that of its driver, the bus tore off down the road.

"Money," said the bus driver simply.

Scout stuck his hands into his pockets only to pull them inside out in a very cliché symbolic gesture.

"Fuck," said Scout even more simply.

Engineer frowned. "Stop with that pottymouth. I'll pay fer us." He dug into a pouch clipped to his belt and shuffled through various nails and bolts and scrap metal and his BankAmericard until, at long last, he had found a quarter.

He was about to pull it out, but had to consider something beforehand. "Er, how much is bus fare...sir?"

"20 a person," replied the bus driver, sharply cutting off a tiny Mustang.

Engineer was panicking inside. He began worriedly squeezing the poor metal flesh of the quarter in his palm. "H-how much fer a kid, then?"

The bus driver turned and looked Scout up and down with a grimace, and then huffed, "Bull. He ain't a kid."

"Yeah, ya damn homo named Engineer!" spat Scout. "News flash: I ain't little. I'm a man. Ya _dig?_"

"He's fourteen!" lied Engineer on a whim.

The bus driver's head shook slowly. "Damn no he ain't."

"Yeah! I ain't fourteen! Ya goddamn_ liar!_" piped Scout. "And guess what? My Ma says that whenever a liar does a lie he gets anothah bitch-slap in hell, he does! So, here's some good news fer you, _pal._ You go ahead and lie all ya _want_, 'cause yer goin' straight ta _hell_ and all, even aftah ya saved dat squirrel outside da base once wit yer goddamn squirrel-savin' machine or whatever ya call it and ya gave it a pros'etic leg even aftah his little leg broke 'cause Medic said it had a knee infection. Remember dat? I do. Okay, psyche, so yer actually really smart and really nice while yer at it, and sometimes maybe sorta funny if Soldier gives ya like a million goddamn beer and tells ya to tell us about yer twen'y-foist boithday party and all. _Gosh,_ was that one helluva funny story! _Haw!_ But no one even _cares_ how funny or nice y'are and all, 'cause yer still a _sinner,_ y'are. So, yeah. Like, don't lie. It's bad fer you and yer goddamn health warranty and all."

The bus driver thought for a second.

"He's damned tall for a kid his age," he concluded.

Engineer smiled and dropped the quarter into the can. "Ah reckon."

Scout humphed. "I fuckin' hate everyone."

As soon as Scout and Engineer turned, however, they emitted a huge gasp. This was a bad idea, though, because they seriously should have conserved air.

Every single sort of person could be found in that bus.

I am not exaggerating.

Clutching her handbag on one of the front seats was an old blonde lady in an itchy sweater. Standing right before her was a businessman with a ridiculously visible bald spot. Next to him was an obese woman who could have counted as about four people, and she was cradling a bawling baby in her arms. And then there was that familiar curly-haired Israeli mother you see everywhere that always spoke with the voice of a half-dead cow. And yet, amidst all of that endless people-clutter, a child managed to run all throughout the adult's legs screeching like an off-tune piccolo.

Acres and acres of people were somehow inside of that tiny bus, even though it looked as if a good portion of them left at the bus stop.

Here's a metaphor for you - the crowd was so thick it was impossible to wedge a_ fork_ between any two people.

But that amazingly visual metaphor wasn't Scout's greatest concern.

"It smells like a dog fart up in this big fat ugly thing," he noted instead of complimenting my great use of descriptive language. Scout decided the best thing to do in such an angsty situation was to clamp his nose shut with his hand.

Engineer was muttering something about manners and the fact that a little girl shouldn't be picking sticky odd-colored clumps off of the bus's floor and eating them.

And then the old blonde lady in an itchy sweater propelled a sneeze from her raspy throat.

"Bless you," the bus echoed within seconds.

As you can see, a crowd as a whole has manners.

A single person, considerably one with a red shirt and a baseball cap, does not.

"Guess what I think, Mrs. Lady? You sneeze weird, dat's what," commented Scout quite loudly, who apparently felt that everyone cared or should care about his opinion. His nose was still clamped, which made his babbles sound five times more squeaky than they already did. "Sort of like a frog would sneeze, if a frog could sneeze. Do frogs even sneeze, even? I dunno. But I do know I sneeze more like a rabbit." He let his nostrils free of his finger's grip with a grin. "Wanna see?"

The old lady, shaking violently, looked up at Scout with frightened eyes widening. Her wig nearly slipped right off of her wrinkly head. "Ex-excuse m-me, sonny?"

Engineer's frail little heart was melting. He turned away in anguish and with an under-the-breath plead to die.

"Wait, actually, whatever," said Scout as he decided against it. "I don't even know how to sneeze on command. Only my big brudda Damien can do dat. He's a boss." He grinned despite his self-insult. "But I can do a big-ass burp, I bet. Wanna see? Or will it, like, be so loud it'll shake yer flabby old lady titties? No offense."

That was the last straw. Engineer stomped on the floor with his plasticy boot, making the bus rattle on its wheels. "SCOUT!"

The said mercenary turned at the mention of his war-themed alias. "Hi." He turned back to the figurative crowd with an explanatory sentence. "Dat's my name, people."

Engineer fumed. "Let's clarify somethin'! Ya don't _burp!_ Ya don't _curse!_ Ya don't IN_SULT_ OLD_ LADIES_ ABOUT THEIR _BREASTS!_" His angry finger jabbed into Scout's chest. "IS THAT _CLEAR,_ MISTER?"

Scout had a comeback for everything, including basic social etiquette. He batted Engineer's finger from his chest with an angry rhetorical question; "Who says I can't, _huh?_"

Engineer thought about it for a moment. His hand shrunk back to his side and he replied in an answer that composed solely of the conundrums of philosophy; "Well, life says."

And, of course, shallow people just avoid intelligence in general and veer into their own interests.

"Oh my _gawd_ - speakin' a' life," Scout said as an abrupt topic switch. "Y'ever heard this one?"

He presented a little introductory cough. "Ahem."

A small portion of everyone turned their gaze his way.

"Okay, wait," he stalled. Scout took a moment to remember exactly how Sniper had said it.

A small portion of everyone waited.

"Arright. Yeah. Okay. Here goes." Scout smiled smugly at all the attention.

"WHEN LIFE GIVES SAXTON HALE LEMONS..." he shouted for the hearing pleasure of the entire bus.

"...SAXTON HALE MAKES ORANGE JUICE!"

He paused for comedic effect.

Too bad his own laughter could not contain itself.

"HAW HAW _HAW!_ OH MAN! OH _MAN,_ I CAN'T! I _CAN'T!_" Scout's tears were streaming down his cheeks. "_HAW_ HAW HAW _HAW!_"

No one laughed with him.

Especially not Engineer, who stood beside him and felt his self-esteem crumbling into breadbits. He was very busy trying not to explode into sorrow-confetti.

Scout, grin still on his face, nudged Engineer in the stomach with his elbow. "Get it, Engy? Get it?" Nudge, nudge. "Do ya? _Do_ ya?"

A little girl tugged on Scout's knee socks.

Scout looked down angrily at the violation of his custom uniform. "Hey, no touchy-touchy, ya little faggot! I bought dose wit my goddamn big-boy allowance and all!" His voice turned whiny as he looked at his now-furrowed snow white knee socks. "And now it's all stretched and wretch'd and it's all yer fault. Thanks a LOT."

She cocked her head curiously. "Who's Saxon Hay?"

"It's none a' yer business to dumbasses like you," Scout replied with utmost pride.

The little girl giggled. "Dumb ass!" she repeated cheerfully.

Disaster time to Engineer's fatherly nerves. He knelt down to the little girl's side and shook his head feverishly. "_Don't!_ Don't say that! Don't say that, sweetie!"

Her attention-loving smile grew as she noticed Engineer's obvious discomfort. "Dumb ass!" she repeated again.

"_No,_ hon!" he scolded with a shake of his yellow-gloved finger. "That's a bad word and ya can't go around sayin' bad words like Scout here, or else you'll end up like him." Engineer tensed up. "An' ya don't wanna end up like him. Believe me."

Scout frowned. "Say _whaaaaaat?_"

"What if I _do_ wanna end up like him?" the girl asked. She raised a good point.

Engineer paused, not knowing the most tactful way to word the answer.

He leaned in close to the girl with a small whisper of "Well, to be frank, Scout ain't very...smart."

"Scout ain't very smart!" she repeated. The little girl looked up at Scout and poked him on his knee sock. "Scout is a dumb ass!"

His foot jerked far behind him to kick an unsuspecting stranger in the shins, but Scout had his own problems to worry about. "YO, WHAT DA _FUCK,_ ENGINEER!?" screamed aforementioned Scout.

"Da fuck!" repeated the little girl. "Da fuck Scout is a not-smart dumb ass!"

Engineer now had many more problems to deal with. He wasn't used to limiting himself like this, which made his statement sound sort of awkward and repetitive instead of how colorful it could have been; "AWW, GO TO HE - SCOUT, YOU...YOU...YER A REAL..._LOSER._"

That didn't really work.

And, almost as if the author of this story was a complete sadist, the little girl's mother passed by and grabbed her by the hand. "Come on, Stacy, that's ours."

"Mommy, you are da fuck dumb ass," she informed her politely.

Her mother nodded. "Mmhm, that's very nice. All right, let's go."

They left the bus.

A sad, sad Engineer felt guilt making its clumpy way into his conscience. He pouted at an innocent life ruined forever.

Engineer looked over, wondering what Scout was thinking at the moment.

Scout was chewing on his fingernail, muttering to himself about his goddamn knee socks and all.

"Scout," Engineer said without even a trace of his emotion. "Scout, ya know damn well that this is all yer fault. It _is_ all yer fault. Ya _do_ realize that."

Scout rolled his eyes. "Yeah, but it ain't_ my_ fault she's da fuckin' dumbass here."


	4. A Chapter About Entering Bookstores

After hell, hell, and more hell of Scout embarrassing Engineer in public, they finally saw a main street outside and Engineer politely informed the bus driver that it was their stop.

This is how Engineer actually informed the bus driver:

Engineer leaned in with a shaky smile and softly said, "Uh, er, uh, excuse me. Mister...uh, Bus Driver Sir. Ah...we...this is our stop...please."

This is how the bus driver interpreted that:

Engineer leaned in with a bitter frown. "Excuse me, Mister 'Bus Driver Sir.' Pfft, yeah, right. What Ah'm actually sayin' here is that I'm better than you, so good riddance to you and yer smelly transportation."

This is how Scout interpreted that:

Engineer leaned in with a grin from ear to ear. He immediately pulled out a cowboy hat, placed it upon his helmet, and began square dancing with a cactus that suddenly appeared before him. "Well butter mah biscuit and call me a raccoon turd, pardner! Aaaah'm a flitty-flabby queer who sits on benches wit attractive straight guys like Scout! Ahyup-hyup-yuk-yuk-yuk! GAWRSH. Better read s'mooore books on schematic mechanic robotastic genius killin' machines lahk Ah always do every darn darn weekend! Well, when Ah ain't too busy gettin' fucked up the tooshie by Soldier, a'course! Yuk-yuk-yuk!" He did an impeccable backflip and then his lungs turned into figurative sirens. "_HOOOOO-OOOOO-OOOOOOOO-_WEE!_ YEEEEEE-_HAAWWWW!" Cream gravy exploded from the inside of his ears and began squirting in all directions. "KEE, OL' BOY! RIDE 'EM COWBOY TEXAS RODEO STRUDEL CRACKERJACKER DIDDLY-PIDDLY PIGGLEWIGGLE PURRRRRDY."

"For Chris_sake,_ Engy, ya didn't have ta make such a big-ass deal ovah nothin' of da unusual," bickered Scout.

The bus driver snarled, which showed off the dried frankfurter crumbs in his beard. "You two get the hell off my bus already," he retorted.

"Foist you get the hell off my ass!" chirped Scout as he flew out of the bus to leave Engineer awkwardly standing there.

"Ah, uh," Engineer began, twiddling his thumbs. "Ah apologize for 'is behavior, and Ah - "

"Get out, seriously!" snapped the bus driver. "Yer holdin' up a ton of people! A_gain!_"

He turned around to discover a very unhappy bunch of pedestrians that were roughly trying to shove past him. "Oh, poo. Sorry, fellers. Sorry, sorry, sorry." He scurried out of the bus.

As soon as the river of people subsided and Scout and Engineer were the only two left at the bus stop, the bus revved off and away down the street in a cloud of smoke. Engineer coughed for at least ten minutes due to the black emissions subsiding from its bus rectum.

Scout pointed at the bench. "How about ya go on and be a faggot again, faggot?"

Engineer didn't even acknowledge that. "Ah figure the bookstore's right around the corner," he said, getting over a finale wheeze. "It's a good bright and sunny day. We can walk 'til there, can't we?"

"_I_ can," Scout replied honestly. "I dunno if you can, though. Ya might pass out and fall right on yer Texas flubber."

"Oh, hush it!" snapped Engineer.

But those words most likely aren't in Scout's known vocabulary.

* * *

It was actually a bright and sunny day. And there were friendly townfolk walking on the sidewalks beside them; some greasers with Elvis hair poofs, a few preppy girls with poodle skirts, that fat lady from the bus, a group of kids smoking cigarettes in an alleyway, some muscly guy punching another muscly guy in the gut, et cetera.

Not that the friendly townfolk had anything to do with the story, of course.

But it did give Engineer something to observe instead of listening to Scout's very imaginative story of how he had a ten-foot-tall dog that would pounce on this boy at school that he hated.

"The dog, right? His name was, like," he continued, "like Ruford. No, wait, not Ruford. It was all like Bert or something. He was a damn good dog. But den my friend - I mean that bully guy, y'know - one time went to my yard and tackled him because he didn't like him and all."

It seems as if a very skeptical Engineer had found a plothole. "Well, wouldn't any of yer big brothers've noticed if someone you hated went to yer yard and tackled yer dog?"

Scout put his hands on his hips, which elbowed some greaser to the side. "Stop interruptin' my dog story!"

"Boy _how_dy, am I so_ so_rry," muttered Engineer. "Please, do go on wit yer a_ma_zing dog story."

"I am," answered Scout. "So about dat stupid kid dat tackled my dog. Man, when people get jealous, dey can really get jealous. I _mean_ it. I never even _met_ a guy dat stupid in my whole entire goddamn_ life._ I _swear._ But anyway, my dog was really nice and all and he was colored purple and green 'cause green is da pimpest color. Like, green polka dots. Purple fur but green polka dots on 'em, dat's what I mean. Okay? Yeah. So when Ru - I mean, Bert - died den it literally crushed me. You know what I mean?"

Engineer, whose life was peeving him by then, raised a sarcastic eyebrow. "It literally crushed you? So, like, yer dog died and then yer bones suddenly ground ta dust on the floor?"

"What the fuck are ya even talkin' about?" bickered Scout. "I'm sayin' it literally crushed me when my dog died, whatever his name was."

"_Literally_ crushed you," repeated Engineer. He smiled. "Your dog_ literally_ crushed you when he died? Was he floatin' above ya or somethin'?"

Scout looked confused. "No, retard, he just died normal."

What a shame. Engineer's sarcastic joke was ruined. "Aw, forget it."

"Ya_ betta_ forget it, 'cause my dog was da definin'shun a' _swag,_" began Scout. "One time I was, like, tryin' ta do my homework and den my dog just started to..."

Scout's feet abruptly planted themselves onto the cement.

Engineer sighed with a goggled eye-roll. "What? Am Ah too close to you or somethin'?"

It was the eight wonder of the world.

It was the answer to all religion and the key to the faith of all humanity.

It was there.

It was spinning.

A_ revolving door._

"BWAAAAAA-AAAAAAAAA-AAAAAAHAHAA-HAAAAAA!" sang Scout as his legs scuttled towards it at breakneck speed.

"_Scout!_" called Engineer like he did whenever his little Connor misbehaved. "What'n the heck - Scout, get back here!"

By then he'd already made it to the empty revolving door entrance. Scout began to push the glass forward and run like an idiot in a circle.

"WANANA_NANANANANA!_" he sang as the doors turned into a transparent hurricane. "LOOK AT ME GO, ENGY! I'M A FREAKIN'_ BLUR_ HERE! YOU _SEEIN'_ DIS? HUH? _HUH?_"

Good thing no one was near that door.

Bad thing there was a cafe right beside them watching the drama unfold.

"SCOUT, YOU GET _OUT_ FROM THERE _RIGHT_ THIS _MIN_UTE,_ MISTER!_" hollered Engineer as he ran towards the revolving doors. "YOU ARE_ MAKIN'_ A _SCENE!_"

Everyone at the cafe peered over their shoulders to observe the short mechanic and his zippy teenager buddy.

Scout hopped out of the glass doors to face Engineer with a squeak of rusty hinges. "OH, YOU SHUT _UP!_ JUST 'CAUSE YER A FLITTY GAY _HOMO_ FAG DON'T MEAN YA GOTTA _RUIN_ EVERY SINGLE FUN THING IN THE ENTIRE GODDAMN _UNIVERSE _AND ALL."

A homosexual within a ten-feet radius! The cafe was abuzz.

Engineer took notice of the murmur coming from the tables to their right. "SCOUT!" he hissed. "SCOUT! GET OVER HERE RIGHT _NOW!_"

"Yeah? Or _what,_ pumpkinhead?" he scoffed.

His teeth clenched. "NOW," growled Engineer chillingly.

A taken-off-guard Scout gulped and did the right thing by walking over to Engineer.

"When we get in that bookstore," Engineer began with teeth still clamped together, "you WILL be quiet as a mouse, do you understand? You will NOT act up and you will BEHAVE and act like a boy your AGE. Alright?"

Scout nodded in a frightened frenzy.

Engineer smiled sincerely. "Thanks for helping that conflict get resolved, Scout. You just earned you some respect, ya did."

The corner of Scout's mouth twitched. "Uh, yeah. That's keen."

The fact that the cafe held a medium volume of whispers towards them was getting on Scout's nerves.

Scout, who decided not to yell 'SHUT UP' at the top of his lungs, flipped them off when Engineer wasn't looking.

* * *

Imagine the worst elevator music possible. Now add some extra saxophone and a little pinch of off-beat tambourine. That's the music one would hear once one was in the bookstore.

A few tables, with people seated upon them reading dusty tomes and sipping coffee, were spread out between the towering bookshelves. The bookshelves, in fact, were so vast that the walls themselves weren't visible at all and there were novella titles as far as the eye could see.

"HOLY _FUCK_ DOES THIS PLACE HAVE A SHITLOADS A' BOOKS!" shrieked Scout in shock.

Engineer slapped a hand to his forehead.

"SSSSSSSSSSH!" hissed the bookworms seated on the tables.

"SORRY, GUYS!" he apologized quite loudly.

In spite of his sadism, the room took an aurora of silence yet again.

"Ah'm gonna go fetch Doc an' Spy a book or two," whispered Engineer. "Please be good, okay? Be quiet and...Ah don't know, find some baseball books or comics or somethin'."

"Uh huh, yeah, fine," agreed Scout in the most sarcastic way possible.

"That's a good boy." He trotted off to the bookshelves in the back.

Scout was now alone in the middle of a bookstore.

This was a bad idea.

He looked around and saw a table on which a young lady was seated and stapling something. The table had a name tag that read 'Check Out Books Here'. She had a name tag on, too.

"Hey," he called as he neared the table. "Hey, secretary lady. What's yer name..." - he paused and stumbled over her neat handwriting on her name tag - "...Aly...Alice...Aleese...Alyssa?" He proudly declared her name; "Alyssa. Hi."

The woman looked up. Though one would expect pink to look terrible as a hair color - and a color for a tight librarian bun, no less - it actually went quite well with her brown uniform vest. As soon as she saw Scout, she knew what kind of person he would be and her smile sank a little bit. "Yes. May I help you?"

Scout put on his Casanova grin and casually placed his elbow on the table. "You come here often, toots?"

She did not appear fazed, and her sullen frown didn't seem to falter either. "I _work_ here." Looks like she'd predicted his personality perfectly. "_Do_ you or do you _not_ need assistance?"

"I need a baseball book," he replied dreamily, head tilted down and eyelashes aflutter.

The woman rolled her eyes and went back to stapling paperwork. "We don't _have_ baseball books here."

"How about, like, a supahero comic or somethin'?" he asked even more dreamily.

She stapled the papers violently and hissed, "We don't sell comic books _either!_"

He winked clumsily, which was an action that required the entire right half of his face. "How about I just check _you_ out then, baby?"

"_Please_ let me _work!_" she snapped with a badly-aimed staple.

Scout took that as a she's-totally-into-me signal. He rose up from the counter, making sure to flex his muscles by tightly placing his hands on his hips. "So, uh, so, uh, are you, like, goin' someplace today?"

The woman looked up, lips pursed. "I'm going to the police station if you don't leave me alone!"

Scout hid his fear as he leaped back. "For Chris_sake,_ lady, calm your goddamn _nip_ples and all. All I said was, like, yeah. _Wow._ You must be on your mens'ral period or somethin'. Yeah, Alyssa or Alice or whatever. Yeah. _Cool_ it."

He dashed off towards the book sections to find Engineer.


	5. A Chapter About Engineer's Mental Demise

_Dear Jesus,_  
_Ah give thanks fer all th' amazin' gifts ya've blessed me with in this life...especially the one about how Scout's left me alone fer two minutes already. Good golly! Thank you, dear Lord, THANK you! Ah'm gonna be extra-grateful this week, all right? Ah'll do some charity work or somethin'. And be all mannerful and polite today. Ah promise. Ah mean it this time, too._

You know someone's desperate when they're praying at a bookstore.

So far, in his two minutes, Engineer had been browsing in the huge four-wheeled 'New Reads' bucket and had found a book for Spy and Medic but had yet to choose one for himself.

He'd picked out a collection of poems by Leonard Cohen - Spy loved poems more than he loved keeping his suit in proper condition - and a nonfiction account about discovering DNA entitled 'The Double Helix' that basically screamed Medic's name.

Engineer was just about to decide if he felt like a Sci-Fi or a mystery today when he heard the voice he'd been straining himself not to hear.

"Hey, hey, Engy," called Scout. "Hey, Engy, time me. Okay? Three, two, one, GO!"

He turned and saw Scout with eyes crossed and cheeks swollen like a chipmunk.

"Scout, what're you doing?" he asked in a hoarse whisper.

The air popped out of his cheeks angrily. "For Chrissake! I told ya to count, retard! Okay, GO!"

Engineer decided he'd rather count now and find out why later. In a monotone, he began reciting his numbers; "One...two...three...fer...five..."

Scout frowned and let his air out yet again. "Stop countin' so goddamn slow, would ya?"

"What's this fer? Ya tryin' ta set a record?"

"A Guinness record, to be 'zact," Scout corrected him. He held up a shiny green Guinness book of world records. "You seein' dis? Yeah. I wanna buy it. Buy it for me. Can ya? Can ya? Please? Please please please please please? Pretty please? A please so pretty dat it makes yer eyeballs water under dem ugly goggles y'always wear?"

Engineer groaned. "Fine."

"Okay, now count." He huffed and his cheeks filled again.

"One two three fer five six seven eight nine ten 'leven..."

Scout broke into huffs and pants. "Holy shit. How is dat possible, even? 'Cause some dude did it fer like 18 whole minutes. Underwater! I don't even get it. How come I can't do dat? Why? Why, genius?"

"Everyone has their own talents, Scout," said a very wise Engineer.

But not everyone appreciates wisdom. For example, Scout had taken Engineer's universal quote as a very personal insult. "Yeah, well, I got da talent of whoopin' short godamn redneck ass like yours, so why don't ya shut up and go back to yer bookstuffs, Smarty?" he snapped.

Engineer did. He searched some more through the New Reads bucket.

Scout grew uneasy at the silence.

The only sound in the entire lobby was the flipping of pages and the sound of aggressive staples.

It was quiet.

Too quiet.

"AAAAAAAAAWKWAAAAAAARD SIIIIIIIIILLLEEEEEEEENCE!" exploded Scout.

Engineer flopped over like a corpse into that half-empty bookbucket with a miserable cry of mental trauma.

Everyone everywhere SSSSHHHHH-ed so violently that their teeth almost vacuumed right out of their mouth and into the air.

Scout burst into giggles. "Sorry, Engy," he said between his chortles. "I, like, couldn't help it. Like, whenever dere's an awkward silence...it's jus' so...y'know. Awkward. And so, like, I just had to and all. Ya get what I'm sayin' here, Goggles?"

No reply.

"Engineer." Scout reached into the bucket and searched around until he felt sweaty cotton shoulders. He grabbed onto one and shook it like a paint mixer. "Enge. Engy. Engamundo. Enchilada."

"Don't talk ta me," moaned Corpsegineer in the bucket, curled up into a fetal position over a mound of Gone With the Winds. He hugged his knees tightly, for they were his only friends at the moment. "Ah'm dead. Dead. That's it."

Scout's face turned sullen. "Dude. Dude, get up."

"Fer in that sleep of death what dreams may come," recited Shakespearegineer gravely. He raised up a random novel and held it dramatically at arm's length. "...alas, poor Engy. I knew 'im well."

Scout's sullen face frowned. "Get out of dat fuckin' bucket. Let's go home. I miss Pyro."

"If Ah must die," he continued, bringing the book to his chest slowly, "Ah will encounter darkness as a bride, and hug it in mah arms..."

"This ain't even funny no more," bickered Scout as if it were ever funny at all.

"Ah'm only gettin' out if you apologize," Engineer muttered.

Scout smiled. "Fuck you. Get outta dere or else I'm gonna tell da whole team dat yer a big fat fagropeg."

To this day, no one has even the slightest idea of what a fagropeg is.

Despite his terrible current situation, Engineer smiled goofily. "Nope!"

"Get _out,_ I said!" grumped Scout.

"Apology not heard. Does not compute." He then giggled like a four-year-old. "Hee hee hee hee! Yup! Yup, you've killed me!"

It was a bad sign if Engineer was acting as silly and impulsive as he did whenever he stayed up all night watching The Price is Right.

His giggles grew loud. "Hee hee hee heh heh hee heh!" In fact, the giggles grew into a laughing fit; something you'd hardly ever hear from a (mostly) serious person like Engineer. "HEE HEE HEE HEE HEE HEE HEE HEE! A'HYUP-YUK-YUK-YUK!"

Scout just stood there in horror. What had he done?

The sound of high heels clacking towards them made Scout whirl around on his toes in reminiscence of his Ma's crimson stilletos.

It wasn't his Ma, though. It was the librarian. The very-pissed-off librarian, actually, for her lips were pursed and she was considering switching off to do the night shift.

"YUK-YUK-YUK-YUK-YUK!" continued Engineer who'd lost touch with reality and was trapped in a glass case of emotion. And a bucket.

Scout gulped and pointed to the giggling Texan in the New Reads. "He did it!" he chirped.

"Sir!" she snapped in an angry whisper, leaning into the bucket. "Sir, get out of that bucket!"

Engineer looked up with a grin of insanity to see an enraged young woman. "YUK-YUK-YUK! HOOOWDY THERE! AH'M DEAD!"

"It doesn't matter if you're dead or alive, sir! Get OUT!" she whisper-fumed, her pink bun standing on end.

"Don't worry, Al..." Scout teetered over a bit to read her name tag again. He squinted. "Ali...Alice...Aleesh..."

"Alyssa," she groaned.

"Alyssa. Right." He began anew. "Don't worry, Alyssa. I know how to get him outta there." Scout smiled smugly. "Leave it to the man wit da plan, baby."

He took an enormous tome from its shelf and heftily lurched it up high above the New Reads bucket where Engineer sat giggling.

She sighed. "Once a week for two hours, and I get stuck with all the freaks..."

"DOWN IT GOES!" Scout let gravity do its job and the book sailed down through the air and thumped onto Engineer's helmet with a noise that should be illegal in most libraries.

Engineer's giggles ceased and he fell over on his side with a much smaller thump and an "...ohhh, lord..."

Judging by her wide eyes and twitching grimace, Alyssa was horrified. "What...is...what did..." she sputtered.

"It's okay," Scout assured her. "Yesterday Demoman took dis big whole huge entire crate and accidentally threw it on Engineer's head from the third floor up. Damn, ya shoulda seen how he looked like when he died. You'd have laughed. It sure was funny! He looked like goddamn scrambled eggs wit goggles. But when he respawned, he was hella mad and all. He wouldn't talk to anyone, except Solly." Scout grinned. "Well, me an' Pyro sure as hell don't think it was talkin' dey did in da room fer like the entire day! Haw haw haw haw!"

Alyssa was shell-shocked from the initial and was currently unable to hear Scout. She just stood there dumbly.

Scout cocked his head in curiosity. "Woah, did you, like, die standin' up? 'Cause you could get a world record for that, you know."

She blinked.

Two innocent girls' lives soiled in one day; at least that's a world record Scout broke.

(Unless Sniper had already broke that record. And maybe the way he soiled the girls' lives had to do with something else he broke. And soiled.)


	6. A Chapter About AmeriCard Chocolates

After blindly guessing Engineer's BankAmericard PIN number - 1929, a pretty stupid PIN for a genius to choose - Scout purchased all the books and even a little one of those shiny silvery chocolate spheres beside the cash register. They were this tiny mound of chocolate that were a forbidden fruit to all those who lacked Rockefeller's income. His Ma never let him and his brothers have any because they were much too expensive for their bite-size, no matter how much Scout pulled on her skirt and begged.

"Okay, so now we got all dem stupid books and all dat, but how're I gonna get Engy outta dat bucket?" Scout asked the librarian lady. He crinkled the chocolate open and popped the dollar-worth niblet into his mouth. He tossed the wrapper at the nearby trash-can and arched his brows in surprise; "Mm! Holy fuck dis is uh-_maaaa_zin'!"

She blinked.

Scout suddenly felt guilty, which is depressing because his guilt only seems to direct itself at pretty young ladies and not unconscious mentally-scarred teammates. "Wait, am I makin' ya jealous?" He pouted exaggeratedly. "Dude, I am so fuckin' sorry. I'll buy you one. You want one? I'll buy it. Whaddaya like..." Scout's hands shuffled through the selections on the chocolate shelf. "...cherry, caca'nut, mint, dark choc'late, whatever dis says, white choc'late..."

"No, thank you," she said slowly. "I don't eat chocolate."

"Oh, so it's _meeee_ yer jealous of!" He laughed. "Haw haw haw, y'know, I wouldn't mind eatin' you up too. Man, you are a fiery one, Alice."

There is no adequate response to that.

Scout reached to snatch a milk chocolate and threw it on the counter. "I want anudda one."

There went another dollar from Engineer's monthly income.

After finishing the chocolate, Scout crumpled the wrapper up and threw it at the faraway trash can, only to miss.

"Yeah, so, anyway, I wanna go home already," Scout continued, bits of chocolatey spit flying from his chocolatey lips. "I guess I'll just wait here 'til he wakes up. Can I, like, hitch a chair at your desk?" He grinned, exposing chocolatey teeth under chocolatey gums.

"I'd truly prefer it if you don't," she finally said.

"Okay, I'll just stand den." Scout shrugged.

There was a tranquil pause; 5 minutes of solemn staples and Scout spacing out while staring at bookshelves.

"I AM GONNA READ DA BOOK DAT I BOUGHT ABOUT WORLD RECORDS NOW!" he announced proudly.

Everyone hissed. Hell, the walls hissed.

Scout made his way across the bookstore and plunked his butt down beside the New Reads bucket to wait for his buddy to regain consciousness.

* * *

"Hcccch...PF_TOO!_"

That was the first thing Engineer heard as his eyelids finally cracked open. He had a blazing headache and his back throbbed because it was currently laying against a jagged mound of pointy angles. He could hardly see anything because the stars he saw before his eyes sort of blocked everything else out.

"Who...what...?"

"Hcccccccch...PF_TOO!_"

Had it all been a dream? "Scout? That you?"

Maybe it all was a dream. Maybe he was back at the base, laying in some crate of discarded scrap metal, and it was time for a good old trip to the bookstore with Spy and Medic just like last week -

Scout's voice boomed throughout everything. "Aw, FINALLY, Mistah Sleepyhead! Do ya know how long I even waited fer you, even? Like, ten thousan' goddamn hours. What if we get back to da base and no one even remembers us and all? Huh? We'd be kicked outta da team, dat's what. And den ya gonna cost me my job, and your job, and it's all 'cause yer a fagbag and ya started gigglin' fer no reason in a bucket. Dat's why. Now get outta dere so we can go home and I can play kickball wit Pyro - if Pyro still remembahs me and didn't get Asperger's or whatevah it's called. Amnesia, yeah, dat's it."

(In reality, three minutes passed.)

Engineer was wincing in severe pain, because such droning high-volume shouldn't be applied vigorously to eardrums after a massive concussion.

"Okay, on three, ya better get out or else Imma, like, sue you. Yeah, speakin' a money..." He grinned apologetically. "...yeah, I sorta spent like 10 bucks from yer credit card on choc'late. I'll pay ya back, I swear it."

"I'll get out," groaned Engineer. He blindly threw a hand up and out of the bucket. "Help me up, son."

"Help yerself, 'cause I'm busy tryin' ta set a record by spittin' furtherest in da entire world. So don't break my concentratin', okay?" He took a deep breath and then hacked; "Hhhhhcccccccch...PFTOO!" His spittle hit the marble with a smack, right beside his toes. "Aww, dat ain't even close t'a hundred feet! No fair."

With every move he made, his temples throbbed in a new and awesome method of pain. One cannot understand how it is possible that Engineer didn't even let out the slightest squeak.

He attempted to stand and...

...discovered the bucket was on wheels.

"WOAH!" yelped Engineer as the bucket scooted up dangerously. "Scout! Scout, hold the bucket, Scout!"

But Scout was in his own world; the record-breaking spittle-distance world. "Hccccccccccccch!" hacked Scout, throwing his head back all the way as if it made any difference to his terrible spitting skills.

Alas, Engineer's boots don't make for the best bucket navigation device. His arms spun on their hinges like hummingbird wings. He felt a sudden lurch forward. "SCOUT! IT'S FALLIN'!"

Scout wasn't done. "HCCCCCCCCH!"

"AAAAAUUUUGGGH!" With a crash, the floor came up to meet the bucket and a tsunami of hardcovers sprinkled all over Engineer like sharp, prodding snowflakes.

"PFFFTOOO!"

Engineer felt a strange warmness trickle down the side of his neck.

"Holy fuck! Engy, is dat...AW HAW HAW HAW HAW HAW! OH MAN! OH MAN! I JUST SPIT ON YA!" Scout doubled over and snorted through the entire bookstore. "HAW HAW HAW HAW!"

By then the bookstore was empty and it was sure to lose any potential customers for the next decade.

So Scout's just ruined two lives and killed a bookstore's reputation. Actually, he ruined Engineer's life impressively well too. Count that as three.

They were strolling down the road with Scout occupying the entire sidewalk and Engineer miserably floating behind him in a cloud of sorrow. The wind had already risen so it wasn't as hot as before. In fact, the breeze helped dry Engineer's juicy wet-armpit-stains. Sorry if that wording made you lose your appetite.

But Scout didn't lose his as he continued with his selfish candy ingestion time. He plucked another chocolate from his cupped hand. "How're we gettin' home, genius?" asked Scout as he smackily chewed away on his next chocolate.

"Let's not take the bus," suggested Engineer.

Scout licked the chocolate off his fingers in a very delicate fashion. "So..." He gulped. "...den what?"

Engineer watched him enjoy the chocolatey treats.

"Ah want one," Engineer said quietly.

Scout grinned and dropped the five chocolates into his front pocket. "Called it!"

"Ya can't just 'call it', son!" snapped Engineer, who felt that he deserved at least one chocolate. "Hell, ya ruined my day." He began counting Scout's sins on his fingers; "Oh, and Ah payed for 'em! And you knocked me out with Encyclopedia Britannica so you could steal my credit card ta buy yerself a useless book of records." He was up to finger three. "And Ah didn't even invite you on this trip and you basically ruined the only wonderful day I had off this week." He crossed his arms oh-so-assertively. "Gimme a goddamn chocolate."

"Boo-hoo on yer prickly pickle pear ass," snubbed Scout with nose in the air. "I already licked 'em. All of them. I'm serious."

"Yer bluffin'!" called Engineer who was beginning to become as stubborn as Scout.

Engineer, however, did not know the Ten Commandments of What Makes Someone a Faggot because he didn't have a big brother named Timothy who would always list those sorts of things. Scout recalled the exact wording and then responded, "Commandment 3. Only a faggot wanna eat somethin' another dude licked. In other words, yer a big fat flit-in-a-bag, that's what y'are."

But no one cares how well Scout knows his Fag Commandments. Especially not Engineer, who ignored him to begin thinking about how they were going to get home.

Because there was no use of talking, Engineer decided to think his way through things as they continued walking down the avenue.

_That there's a payphone, ain't it?_, Engineer thought, looking down the street and spotting a red telephone booth. _And ya put nickels in a booth. So them things're activated by the weight of a nickel as it's inserted, right? The coin activates a sort a' pulse, and that pulse starts the dial tone of the phone. Hmm... _He raised a glove to nibble on its index finger's tip as he began a little mental machinery_. If Ah construct a tiny scrap of metal with an equal weight and radius of a nickel, Ah can rig the booth to make it perform a call fer me..._

His eyes grew wide in realization.

_Oh, gosh, am Ah sorry, Jesus. Oh, oh gosh, Ah'm a sinner...well...Ah know Ah owe ya one, but Ah don't got a nickel and Ah need a way ta get home. Fergive me! Fergive me, would ya? Ah promise, Ah promise, Ah _promise_ Ah'll be extra nice this week..._

"HEY!" shouted Scout suddenly, knocking Engineer out of his thoughts-and-apologetic-prayer.

Engineer flew back to earth with a shudder. "What? What?"

"MY HAT!" Scout belted a hand forward to point at his hat drifting off in the wind. "DA GODDAMN WIND FUCKIN' STOLE MY FUCKIN' HAT!"

He rolled his eyes. "Scout, you have more hats at home. Life goes on."

"GET IT!" Scout looked furious. He jabbed the finger forward and pointed at the black baseball cap floating through distant sky like a bird. "ENGINEER! _GET_ MY _HAT!_"

Engineer shook his head as he looked at the tiny dot undoubtedly sailing through the air at the rate of a turret's fire. "Listen, Scout, that hat's much too far to chase. We're not going to go after it. No deal." Looks like life provided him with some assertiveness training as well.

"But..." Scout's shoulders sagged and his lips quivered like a child's. "B-but...but dat was my lucky hat my brudda Carl gave me and all..."

"You have more brothers at home, too." Engineer hurriedly patted him on the back. "Okay, so, anyway, about gettin' home...we're gonna need to find a piece of scrap metal, a chisel, and a - "

"I ain't movin'," Scout growled.

Engineer blinked. "What?"

"I ain't movin'," he repeated, looking completely cross. "I ain't movin' until I get my lucky hat back."

"Okay, fine." Engineer huffed at him and started down the street. "Have it yer way, pal. Ah can finally, FINALLY git rid a' you, and my sweet an' tender heart won't even feel bad none about it." He looked up at the sky with a smile of relief. "Oh, Lord, thank you yet again..."

Scout couldn't look at Engineer. He was trying very, very hard to look angry.

But, of course, nothing could bother Engineer in his technical trance. By the time Scout had turned back around, he'd wandered off down the road, searching in his pocket for a piece of scrap metal and a chisel.


	7. A Chapter About Phone Calls and the Base

We all know how much Scout ruins everyone's lives.

But somewhere, in an alternate universe, Scout was making everyone's life perfect.

And by 'alternate universe', I mean back at the base.

And by 'making everyone's life perfect', I mean that the team finally got rid of him.

So they had tea for breakfast, because Scout never lets them do that.

(But not Sniper. Sniper didn't like tea.)

Medic, Spy, Heavy, Sniper, Soldier, and Pyro were gathered around a table, each with a little red teacup and a warm, lighthearted feeling - except a certain Australian someone who had a distinct lack of teacup. Sniper didn't like tea.

And, of course, Demoman was oversleeping again. But no one complained, because at times Demoman can get just as annoying as Scout can, and that's not necessarily a fun situation to be a part of. But anyway, the silly half-crocked cyclops wasn't sullen enough to poke fun at politicians like the team did.

Right then, actually, they were playing name-the-politician, and it was Medic's turn to act one out. Medic wasn't very good at pretending to be politicians, though. But the team felt like being nice, because Scout never lets them do that either.

He laid down his tea on the table, stood with eyes gleaming, and said, "I see a day ven America is proud of its flag...I see a child's face ven ah nation is at peace, ja." He shook his head feverishly with a strange sound; "Ahrhrurhhrgh!" Medic plunked back into his seat with a grin. "Ze end."

Sniper smiled. "Oh."

A second later, Soldier laughed in realization. "Hah! Nice one, Doc!" He lifted his cup of bland boiling water and drank it all down with a generous swig before slamming it back onto the coffee table. Spy winced at the severe lack of manners.

A silence fell upon the table.

"Lmmmndh Bhm Jnmmshn," guessed Pyro, pretend-drinking from the empty tea cup due to the mask's limitations.

Medic turned, white teeth not losing his evil grin. "Nein!"

Once more was there a shortage of ideas.

"Surely zhis isn't going to be one of zhose 'orrid trick questions you tried to cheat us wizh, like last week," Spy bickered. He daintily raised up a glove and took a small sip of his tea. He looked to the rest of the team. "Anyone else recall zhat moment? Zhe bullshit about zhe elephants and zhe elephant guns and whatnot..."

"Excuse your French, Frenchie!" sneered Soldier before howling into laughter.

Medic frowned. "Ernst, Spy? Za pink elephant thing vas actually very funny, in my opinion - "

"Yes!" hurriedly agreed Heavy. "So funny. Ha ha! I laugh so hard at thees elephant joke, stomach turn full of pain." He grinned awkwardly.

Medic's left eyebrow slid up his forehead. "Er, danke, Heavy." He brought the topic back; "But my current charade ist not a trick qvestion, I assure you." His grin returned to him. "Los, los! Keep guessing!"

"Thmsh msh stmmphd," realized Pyro with a groan.

The idea river had dried, and it seemed so by the following awkwardly-silent ten minutes.

"If Scout were 'ere, he would 'ave announced zhe awkward silence," noted Spy before sipping from his tea.

"Don't remind me," grumbled Sniper.

Pyro sighed in mourning.

Medic scowled. "Argh! Ve ah getting off_-top_ic! Keep _guessing!_"

"One hint you geeve us, maybe?" suggested Heavy with sad eyes.

Soldier furiously poured more Tabasco into his cup. "YOU _BRAIN_LESS_ BLOCK_HEADS! IT'S _NIX_ON!" He downed the entire mess.

Sniper quietly nodded.

Heavy smiled and gestured to Sniper with his teacup. "Ees your turn, Sniper. You guess right always." He chuckled. "And before Soldier."

Maybe the Tabasco was driving him crazy. "SAYS THE COMMIE WHO NEVER GUESSES AT ALL!"

"Hush," commanded Spy, bringing his index finger to his lips. "Zhis is our only Scout-less time. Use it wisely."

Pyro sighed in mourning again.

Soldier turned. "What's the matter with Firebug?"

The mask looked up briefly and Pyro whined, "Mh wmsh Scmmt wms hmmr."

"Good for you," responded Sniper. He stood. "Okay, um, give me a second." He took a second to think.

Soldier leaned in intently with a squint to his Australian nemesis.

Sniper then stood up tall and coughed a bit. His hands mimed a beard.

But beards bring their own political associations with them.

"Marx!" shouted Medic.

"Stolypin!" shouted Heavy.

"Napoleon zhe Third!" shouted Spy.

Sniper looked down. "Wrong, wrong, and wrong." He continued, his voice sinking into a low monotone; "Four score and seven years ago..."

Soldier almost flung his Tabasco cup into the air. "GETTYSBURG ADDRESS, NOVEMBER 19th, 1863, BY ABRAHAM LINCOLN TO HIS TROOPS IN PENNSYLVANIA!"

He nodded awkwardly. "Uh, that'd be roight, then."

Suddenly, from the other room, the phone rang with a familiar jingle.

Sniper gulped and looked almost horrified. "Oh...oh crap, Oi thinks it's for me, mates. Go on wit'out me." He pointed at the first guesser. "Er, uh - Soldier, yeah. Your go."

Soldier grinned and flew up to the top of the table with an overjoyed "HOO-AH, THIS IS GONNA BE FUN!"

Most likely due to the terror Sniper felt towards the call, his feet propelled him towards the kitchen. He locked the door, dashed towards the rotary, and quickly snatched up the receiver.

"Mum?" he said in a whiny tone, hugging the telephone to his cheek. "Mum, this is Richie. Please don't yell at me. Oi know Oi didn't call. Oi'm sorry, Oi'm so sorry, Oi didn't mean nothin' by it, okay? Yer the best parents Oi could ever ask for."

No one responded on the other line. Only after a long moment was there another voice on the phone; "Oh, well..."

Sniper's whiny tone turned into a whisper. "Mum, listen," he began. "Mum, don't be mad at me, okay? You and Dad know that Oi give a big thank-you fer that polka-dot koala sweater ya knitted fer me. Oi swear Oi wear it every day. Just 'cause Oi can't mail the thank-you letter...that don't mean, y'know, that Oi ain't grateful. Ya get me, roight, Mum? Little Richie's real grateful, he swears. He knows he's got the best two folks anyone can ever ask for."

Another pause. "Wait a second here..."

"Before you ask," interrupted a Sniper who'd already memorized his mother's routine, "Oi wont to remind you that Oi_ have_ been eating my fruits and veggies. Fair dinkum. And by the way, yesterday my team was all like 'Hey, we're off ta drink some beer, ya feel like a can?' and Oi was all 'Nah, mates, beer's rubbish.' And then they swung the bottles down their necks like Uncle Henry does every family reunion. Ha ha ha ha!"

And then his voice grew serious again. "No, but really, Oi didn't e'en have a glass of it, Oi swear! Oi didn't even drink any, so they called me..." He tried to think of a word that made sense in that situation. "...uh, a prude. Yeh, a prude. That's it."

No response.

"You...you don't believe me, do you?" Sniper faux-sniffled. "Mum, Oi_ love_ you! And also, Mum, Oi'll mail you that thank-you letter! Really!" His voice grew childlike and propelled up by two octaves as he began to gush; "Oh, Mummy! Mummy sweetheart daaaahling! My wonderful sugar-cakes-dumplin'-piiiiiiie! Yer the best Mummy-poo in the whole woide _woooorld!_ Oi'll put extra kissies in the envelope, just fer_ youuuuu!_" He smooched his lips to the telephone. "Mwah-mwah-mwah-mwah!"

He waited for a while, eventually drumming his fingers on the rotary buttons.

"Mummy. Mum, are you there? Mum? Is the phone doing the staticy-long-distance thing again? God, not that."

"Uh, Sniper..."

"Oh. Dad. Dad? Is this Dad?"

"Uh..."

"Oh, okay. Hi, Dad. Can ya put Mum on the line for me, please? 'Preciate it."

There was an even longer silence.

Sniper waited for his Mum to take the phone. He heard a small sound, somewhat like a crackle.

"Mum? That you? You there?"

"Sniper, uh, hate to tell you this..."

Sniper froze. "...this is Engineer, isn't it?"

After a very tense pause, Engineer's voice spoke; "Yup."

His voice deflated into a grumbly monotone. "Oh. Hello."

Engineer coughed into the phone. "Hi."

Sniper coughed back. "So, er...why'd ya ring?"

"Not much. Need a ride, and out of bus fare. Scout's stayin'."

"Oh, is he?" It hardly sounded like a question.

"He's bein' stubborn again. Gonna teach him a lesson this time."

"Hm. Good. He'll need it."

"His hat flew away."

"Is that so." (No question mark, because that's how sickeningly monotonous it sounded.)

"He said it was his lucky hat or somethin' and he ain't leavin' without it." Engineer chuckled. "What a stubborn youngster..." - his chuckle turned into a cry of woe - "...god...oh god, how Ah hate him..."

"Truckie," said Sniper to interrupt the incessant sobbing. "Truckie, where the bloody hell are you?"

His sobs lessened as he sniffed a small, "Oh." A small pause. "Well, Ah'm, er, in the city."

Sniper smirked. "Be specific."

"Alrighty, then...wait a mo'..." There was a small thump of him placing his glove against the receiver.

Meanwhile Sniper was mentally sticking knives into his skull and considering murdering Engineer because he knew too much.

The glove slid off with another staticy noise and Engineer's voice returned to the call. "Okay. Ah'm at the intersection of 21st and Washburn, by the telephone booths and that cigar store. You know which one. The one where Soldier got that fancy whatchamacallit - the...the stogie."

"Yeah, yeah. Got it. Oi'll get there in a quarter hour, that good?"

"Just dandy."

Sniper's voice grew into a growl. "And if you dare tell anyone about whot you just heard, you can kiss your wife and kids goodbye. Is that clear?"

"Ah won't tell a soul. Cross my heart. Ah mean it."

"You'd better."

"See you, Sniper."

"Hooroo."

Engineer hung up with a small click.

The receiver hung in Sniper's hand for ten more minutes until he gently placed it back down onto its base.

Most awkward telephone conversation ever.

* * *

The base's door flung open with a whoosh of afternoon air and a slam against the wall. Engineer's voice echoed through the hallways with a delighted "Fellas! We're home!"

Everyone looked over to the archway to see three things coming into the kitchen; Engineer, Sniper, and a surprising lack of Scout.

Heavy greeted them warmly with a small wave. "Good speed on way home! Your time ees just right for my turn!"

Demoman had joined the game by then. "Somethin's a-missin'. Where's th' lad?"

"Insisted on staying. Now he's in the middle of 21st and Washburn behind a cigar store and he refuses to come home because his hat flew away." Engineer sank into the brown sea of sofa.

"Aww, Engy, you poor thing," cooed Soldier with such emotion that it wasn't clear if he was being sarcastic or not.

"I'd say. God, that was hell. Ah broke down crying at one point." Engineer raised up a plastic bag with a smile. "Got you guys yer books, though!"

Medic grinned and the bag was in his hands in less than a second. "Danke!"

Spy pouted and smacked Medic's glove. "Don't hog it, you_ hog!_" He grabbed hold of the bag as well and nearly stuck his entire mask into it. "Oo! Is zhat Leonard Co'en? Dear_ lord!_ He's one of my_ favorites!_ Splendid choice! Bravo!"

"Vhat ist zis..." Medic dug out his own book and inspected its cover. "'Za Double Helix'? Ah, I haf heard of it!" He grinned as he skimmed its back-summary. "DNA, hm? Zank you, mein hard-hatted friend!"

Engineer swatted them away smugly. "Aw, don't flatter me, fellas. You're all welcome."

"How come_ I_ don't get a book?_ I_ want a book!" grumped Soldier. "Engy, you better get me The Art of War next time, or else I will veto you off this team."

Engineer paused. "You already have seven copies, Solly."

Soldier smiled. "I know."

"That Ah bought."

"I know."

Sniper smirked. "You always talk about 'em, but where are they, anyway?"

Soldier sighed, because Sniper had asked the most obvious question in the world. "Duh. I bury them with the cold, dead bodies of you, my teammates."

The room got quiet.

Spy glanced up from his Leonard Cohen and slowly said, "Zhat sounds...lovely, Soldier."

"It _is_ lovely."

Heavy, who was very patient for a Russian with his temper, was pouting to himself as he stood tall and out of focus. "You interrupting my turn. I have good impression in mind."

Medic laid the book on his lap and gestured to Heavy like a conductor. "Everyvun! Za floor goes to Heavy!"

A flush sounded and then, with a drum of rubber boots on the metal, Pyro stormed into the scene yelling "_SCMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMT!_" as if this were some sort of melodramatic romantic movie.

Everyone froze as Pyro pulled the boot's brakes at the realization of a very important fact:

Scout wasn't there.

"Whmmr'sh Scmmt?" asked Pyro feebly with a voice so strung with woe even Medic's depressing violin tunes could not compare in degrees of miserableness.

No one was mean (or brave) enough to inform Pyro that Scout was off standing in the middle of 21st and Washburn beside a cigar store hatless and stubborn as an ass. So everyone sort of just squirmed in their seats and stared at each other.

But alcohol takes the tact right out of anyone.

"'E's off standin' in th' middle a' 21st and Washburn beside a cigar store hatless and stubborn as an ass," slurred Demoman. He then burped and found his belch to be entirely hilarious.

In the blink of an eye, Pyro was gone, the door was slammed, and disaster was about to be brought back to the base.

"Ruining everyone's day yet_ again,_ Demoman! You always do zhis to us, don't you, de_press_ing drunken_ monkey?_" snapped a very friendly Spy.

Demoman pouted in guilt and his eye glinted with the hint of oncoming tears. Of course, that was probably just the alcohol crying. "Wha' did I do...?"

"People, ees my turn," Heavy politely informed those who were listening. (Which was, quite frankly, no one.)

Engineer, who had already grown used to Demoman's stupidity, patiently explained the current situation. "Now Pyro's gonna go and fetch Scout, Demo. And then everything will be..." - he sighed - "...back to normal."


	8. A Chapter About The End

Scout stood there for forty minutes.

In forty minutes, Scout could have played 2 rounds of dodgeball. Or he could have ran fifteen times around the block. Or he could have watched a new episode of The Beverly Hillbillies. Or annoyed the living hell out of all of his teammates consequently - twice.

He'd lost so much precious time just standing there.

And on top of that, it was already practically dark and it was really cold.

And on top of that, tiny droplets of rain began drizzling all over Scout and his hatless head.

And on top of THAT, there were no cute librarian girls with librarian butts that he could check out. The horror.

All those facts didn't matter to him that much anyway, though. Scout stood there, because he was stubborn and he wanted his hat and he hated goddamn Engineer, that faggot.

Scout stood there, suffering in the shivering drizzly stubborn sidewalk prison that he had built for himself.

Why?

Because someone was going to rescue him. Someone would fly into the scene like a superhero and Scout would break free of his terrible spell. Together Scout and his real friend would look for his hat, but of course they wouldn't find it. They'd rant about how someone had obviously stolen it due to its sheer awesomeness and pimpin' anomaly. Then they'd hitchhike back to the base in some dude's car and afterwards they'd laugh about how he smelled like rotten salami. Then Scout would tell his true friend how he'd planned out their entire trip while he waited for him there by the cigar store. And the true friend would listen and laugh and call Scout cool nicknames like Lightning Toes, like a real friend would.

That's why.

And he especially didn't want to walk to the base alone because he'd get lost. His Ma always told him he had shitty navigational skills. She said he couldn't even walk one block to school on the first day. That wasn't even his fault, though. He was young and innocent. But Scout still didn't want to walk to the base alone. The city looked very big and scary to get lost in. And there weren't even any librarian butts he could ask for directions in case he got lost.

_That's_ why.

So Scout stood there.

* * *

And then, just like his vision had foretold, Scout heard his true friend.

"SCMMMMMT!"

His head whirled over to see Pyro galloping towards him with arms spread wide apart.

Scout grinned. "PY_RO,_ MY _BROOOO!_"

And then Scout suddenly escaped his mental prison, allowed his feet to fly into the air, and blasted towards Pyro full speed ahead.

The two clashed suddenly, right there in the middle of the sidewalk. Pyro had Scout in a headlock and was giving him a rubber-gloved noogie, and Scout was busy repeatedly whacking Pyro in the stomach with his elbow. Of course, all the while, the two were shouting expletives at each other.

"I MISSED YA, YA GODDAMN MUMBLY BASTARD!"

"YMMH LMMTTLH FMMCKR, YMMH!"

"AW, PYRO!"

"MH, SCMMT!"

They let loose of each other and then skipped down the sidewalk hand in hand.

"Man, it sure sucks to be around a flitty_ faggot_ all day!" bickered Scout as he swung Pyro's glove with his. "I'm _tellin'_ ya. That bastard Engineer was flirtin' wit me all _day,_ no kiddin'. He was talking to me and tryin' ta flatter me and stuff, y'know?"

Pyro gasped. "Mmh! Whmmt mh _fmgght!_"

"I _know,_ right? Tell me about it. Like, I sat on dis goddamn _bench_ and I turn around, and guess what?" Scout placed his hands on Pyro's shoulders and looked deep into the mask's goggles. "Next thing I know, the bastard's right _dere_ - sittin' right NEXT to me! " Scout pulled Pyro closer. "On a BENCH and all!"

"WHMMT thmm _FMMCK?_"

"A BENCH, for Chris_sake!_"

Just then the wind picked up and the rain got heavier.

"Ugh, I'm getting rained on with goddamn water all over myself and I'm really cold and all," whined Scout in a nonsensical complain-fest. He sneezed like a rabbit - like a rabbit would sneeze if a rabbit could sneeze.

"Blmmsh ymmh," said Pyro.

"Yeah, th-th-thanks," Scout said, teeth beginning to chatter. The wind whoosed and his dogtags jingled.

Pyro, who was encased in that thick inflammable suit, didn't understand Scout's lack of warmth. "Smh Mh gmmsh ymm'rh rmmlhy cmmld, hmh?"

A wet shivering Scout wedged his hands under his armpits to conserve heat. "N-n-no s-_shit_ I'm r-really goddamn c-c-cold."

So then Pyro wrapped an arm around Scout's waist strictly for the purpose of conserving heat, of course. "Thmmt btthr?"

"No."

Pyro's arm slowly shriveled away in a dead-awkward manner.

With a clash and a bash, thunder made its prescence clear to poor Scout.

Scout's eyes grew wide and he began running around Pyro in a worried circle. "Holy-fuck-it's-thunder-holy-fuck-bro-what-da-fuck're-we-gonna-even-do-we're-gonna-_DIIIIIIIIEEEEEEE!_"

Pyro yanked Scout's arm. "QWMMCK! THMM _PHMMNH BMMTH!_"

A rumble of thunder sounded again. It was definitely out to get them.

They darted into the one-person phone booth, squeezed into it, and shut the glass. Scout and Pyro were basically smushed together, for Scout's face and Pyro's mask were somewhere around a centimeter apart and their chests could have easily molded into one.

Scout caught his breath. "_Damn,_ was dat fuckin' scary as _hell!_"

Pyro nodded, huffing through the mask as well. "Ymmh."

Scout frowned. "Can ya put yer goddamn leg somewhere _else?_ 'Cause it's basically in be_tween_ my fuckin' _thighs._"

Pyro squiggled against the glass. "Shmrry. Thmmt btthr?"

Scout shrugged and adjusted himself. "Yeah, sorta."

"'Kmhy."

Scout thought for a moment, and then got them back on track; "Yeah, so, wait, I didn't finish tellin' ya about how much of a fagropeg dat goddamn Engineer is..."

* * *

So what happened in the aftermath is, quite simply, a happy ending.

After the rain was over, Scout and Pyro eventually went into the bookstore and asked the librarian lady Alyssa if she happened to have a nickel with her. She took one look at Pyro and basically threw the nickel at Scout's face.

They got a ride to the base from a very upset Sniper who wouldn't talk to either of them and kept muttering something about a polka-dot sweater or a thank-you letter or something like that. But when Scout asked him what the hell he was even talking about, Sniper just smirked and spit out the window.

And by the time they arrived, everyone was already asleep or 'telling Soldier about his day' or reading The Double Helix while operating on Demo's liver or reading Leonard Cohen while ironing a crisp new suit.

It was a wonderful battle-less night, and those raindrops seeped through the carpet like warm Jarate on a crisp new suit. And later Spy thought he forgot his wristwatch on the sofa so he walked to the living room barefoot in his pajamas, but then his foot intruded on a pool of cold raindrop carpet-puddle and Spy let out the most high-pitched squeal he'd ever produced. It distracted Heavy and really pissed him off because he was in the middle of giving Sasha her post-battle wax polish.

Speaking of Heavy, he never actually got to have a turn. Spoiler alert; he was going to be Stalin. But no one would have guessed that anyway - and if someone had guessed it then Soldier would have had a temper tantrum - so that's a good thing.

I guess one can say that the team ceased their day pretty well, and it surely felt like a long day to flitty fagropeg Engineer. He then decided, next time Scout intrudes on bookstore-plans, to become the assertive fellow he can sometimes be if he really puts some effort into it. (And Soldier 'likes' when Engineer puts 'effort' into being 'assertive.' Nudge, nudge. That was the 'topic' of Soldier's and Engineer's...'conversation'. HA HA HA HA OH GOD.)

In conclusion, I just wanna say a few last things.

This was going to be a story about emotion.

This was going to be a story about misery, sorrow, and the loss of will to live.

This was going to be a story about misunderstandings and quarrels and flitbags and faggots.

But, more importantly, this was going to be a story about bookstores.

And somehow it turned into this homosexual satirical garbage.

So yeah.

The end.

* * *

_i can't wait to see what you guys thought of this terrible ending :')_


End file.
